The transferring of boards automatically through a control station before edging is already known in the prior art. As an example of such an arrangement, reference is made to an apparatus disclosed in Swedish patent publication No. 395,870. According to the disclosure of the aforesaid patent publication, every board is transferred in a transversal direction to a measuring station; the board is then arrested against stops and the board lays still during the optical measuring of wane consistent. After obtaining the measuring information, the stops are moved away so that the board can be further transported in a longitudinal position against alignment stops. In alignment stops have been positioned according to information provided by a data processing unit in order to achieve an optimum result in the edging of the board. From alignment stops the board is charged into the edging station while at the same time the exact or desired edging is maintained in accordance with the information provided from the data processing unit.
Some problems exist in connection with the prior art system, and these specifically are that the prior known systems either do not measure the wane consistent as rapidly as desired or as accurately as desired.
The defect of the previously known automatic wane consistent measurements is either their inaccuracy or their slowness. With the solution proposed by the aforementioned Swedish patent publication, the board's transversal movement is stopped for a period of time which is necessary to make the measurement. Furthermore, stopping and again accelerating the board requires its own additional time. It is also to be noted that while the board is fed out of the alignment station in the longitudinal direction, the next board is only able to enter the measurement station when the previous board has been moved to a distance away, equal to its own length.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a system in which the measurement of the wane-edge consistent as well as other features of the board lumber are automatically detected while the board moves longitudinally through the control station.
A further object of the invention is to speed up the measurement and alignment processes and system of wane-edged boards.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a system in which one board is being checked while another board is being aligned so that both the alignment of a following board takes place while a lead board is being checked.
Still another object of the invention is to move a board into justaposition with fixed stops to fix the orientation and form of the board into orthogonal coordinates to continuously move boards through a wane edge saw without stopping to ascertain the coordinates.